Weekend Wisdom

Just In Case You Tell Us You Are Gay

 This is what hate sounds like.

  

This letter is making the rounds of the internet.  I have no idea if this particular letter is legitimate but it doesn't matter because thousands of LGBTQ children, teens and young adults get "this" letter from the people who should love them no matter what.  

I can not fathom what dwells in the soul of someone to write a letter like this to their own child.   

But on the chance one of my children is that 1 in 10- I decided to write my own letter so I am prepared- just in case I should need it someday.

To my beloved child,

Today you told us you are gay.  Your dad and I have lots of dreams for you.  Dreams that you will grow up to be happy and successful- however you want to measure success.  That you will find fulfillment in your life and that you will be kind and compassionate towards all living things.  That you will make the world a better place.  Oh and that someday- FAR in the future- you will bring us lots of fat bouncy grandbabies.

Nothing about being gay changes that.  We are certainly worried for you as the world is often cruel to those who are different and right now being gay means having to worry about safety more than other people might have to.  

But rest assured, we love every bit of who you are- EVERY part.  You are perfectly made and never let anyone tell you otherwise.

Of course we will worry, but we were doing that anyway.  

But know in our house, it will always be a safe place for you.  ALWAYS.  

We will always be your biggest defenders.  

We will fight a war for you if we have to. 

Also please know that not only will we always love you but we will love whoever loves you.  

Regardless of their gender.  

We understand that love doesn't always conform to what society thinks it should and that at the end of the day all that matters is two people- ANY two people- who love each other and care for each other and are kind to each other.  

If they love you, we will love them and welcome them into the safety of our house with open arms.

You are our perfectly made, unconditionally loved child.

Love Mom and Dad

PS- I wasn't kidding about the grandbabies.

Things I Didn't Want to Have to Deal With

One of the things that prospective (and new) adoptive parents worry (often obsessively) about is attachment issues.  "What if they don't attach?"  Some parents go to great lengths to facilitate this attachment- banning anyone from holding the child and hiding in their house for months on end.  Other parents don't go to those same lengths but regardless we are all on guard for signs that there are attachment issues.  Because attachment issues, well they are actually a big deal.

I could talk for hours about attachment (just ask my college students who have to sit through a lecture on it every quarter) and it really is fascinating research but it is sufficient to say that attachment is the foundation on which all social emotional functioning is based.  And the more severe the attachment issue, the greater the risk of serious problems in the future.  So adoptive parents take it very seriously.

About 6 months ago we began to suspect one of our children was exhibiting issues with attachment.  For the purposes of these posts, I am not going to name which child it is- this child will be known as RADish- that way I can talk about our situation without compromising RADish's privacy.  (and for those of you who know about attachment you know that RAD is an acronym for Reactive Attachment Disorder- which is the most severe form of attachment difficulties.  I tried to think of another alias but this one sounded cute and it really describes the child- they are RAD-ish)

Right now RADish is fairly oppositional, and is engaging in inappropriate attention seeking behavior- especially if I am paying any attention to any other child.  RADish is refusing to sleep in their room at night (a problem we have never had before)  RADish has become aggressive and will hit/kick/push the other kids with little apparent provocation.  RADish has not had any trouble with any of these behaviors at school.  RADish is affectionate with us but forms very intense (but superficial) bonds with any adult and will interact with adults indiscriminately.  For example, RADish was upset at church last week saying goodbye to one of the teen volunteers that did Vacation Bible School.  This was a person RADish had only interacted with for 4 day (and 3 hours a day at that), yet saying goodbye involved tears and hugs and sadness that was very disproportionate to the situation.  Even when showing us affection, RADish will quickly go from loving to screaming at us in the blink of an eye.

So off we went to try to get some help before the situation gets worse because the older kids are the more risky the behaviors, the harder the therapy and the likelihood of success decreases

Right now RADish's issues and behaviors (thankfully) do not meet the threshold for an official RAD diagnosis so we are going to be trying, with the therapist, something called Parent Child Interaction Therapy- which is basically a 5 minute playtime every day in which RADish gets to choose the activity and I have to follow their lead without giving any commands, directions or criticisms.  In addition, I am supposed to praise a certain way and (and here's the hard one for a preschool teacher) I can't ask any questions.    We start tonight....

Did You Know?

That if you go over to the right sidebar and scroll down- you can click on the "like' button to get our posts sent right to your Facebook wall. 

Then you don't have to remember to check for updates.  

And who doesn't like things that are easy.  

Seriously, click the like button- you'll be glad you did...

Weekend Wisdom

"And that’s when it hit me: how we’ve let these kids down. The mess we’ve handed them. The huge debts. An economy producing too few jobs and vast inequality. A rich man’s country with a flailing middle class. The tenuous prosperity of everyday people wiped out by Wall Street insiders and Washington hucksters, still up to their old tricks. And far below the water line, like those passengers on the Titanic, the poor, traveling as always at the cheapest rate, trapped in steerage. 

How did we become a country of such ugly, stupid politics? One party, doddering and feckless; the other, radical, and reckless, and downright mean, driven by unblinking ideologues with kamikaze souls."

 - Bill Moyer

My Beef with Chick Fil A

There's already a lot (in fact far too much in some cases) that has been said about the Chick Fil A debacle, fiasco, controversy, I'm not sure what to call it really and while I would love to add something profound- others have already done it better.

The Chick Fellatio: Stuck in the Craw at Owldolatrous Productions

and 

In the Basement at Jen Hatmaker.com

are great ones to start with.

But I do want to say this for the record

1.  It is Chick Fil A's right to spend their corporate money on whatever they want.  It is my right to make sure that none of my money becomes part of their corporate money however.  (If at any point in the future Chick Fil A wants to donate to only charities that support the kind of Christian missions actually in the Bible- like feeding the homeless, caring for the orphans and widows, etc- my family will be the first in line to order some waffle fries.

2.  It is unacceptable for any mayor (or other politician) to ban this or any other company based on their beliefs UNLESS they are doing something illegal.  I fully support their right to open as many restaurants as they want and they feel the market will support.  However, it is my right not to support them.  Just like if an adult book store wanted to open in my neighborhood.  That is their right.  It is my right to post the license plates of everyone who shops there on Facebook.  (okay, I don't really know if that is legal but you get the idea)  If Chick Fil A's values are really at odds with the residents of Boston, or Chicago, or wherever, as a business they won't last long there anyway as there will be no customers.  This is a case where free market capitalism actually works well.

3.  I was torn yesterday because I do not support their anti-gay stance, but I do support their right to exist.  In the end my belief that they are not getting my money won out.

BUT.....

Here's the thing that bugs me most of all (well after the fact that we are having this kind of discussion in 2012- I mean shouldn't we have evolved past this by now...)  But anyway- here's my beef with Chick Fil A

Call me a cynic (or crazy liberal) but I do not in ANY way believe that the announcement of the  discontinuing of these toys (based on a "recall" despite having not injured anyone and even if true is by no means a "safety issue") hours before the toy manufacturer publicly severed ties with Chick Fil A is coincidental.   And I have a problem with that.  Chick Fil A has no issue publicly declaring what they believe in.  Then why lie now?  If you are going to believe something and stand for something- then do that.  Don't stand for something and when you meet resistance, change your story.  That sign should have read something like this...

We apologize...yada yada yada but as of 7/19/2012 Jim Henson's Puppet Factory is no longer willing to supply toys for our kids meals because they don't agree with our stance on traditional marriage (or alternative wording.... they don't agree with the charities we donate money to)  We are unwilling to compromise our beliefs.  They are unwilling to work with us.  We are in the process of locating a toy supplier who shares our values (or alternative wording... doesn't give a crap what we do with our money).  Until we find a replacement toy yada yada yada....

Be honest.  It's not like the world doesn't know EXACTLY what happened.  To lie about this undermines your credibility- not to mention violates a commandment.

Your position is clear.  Put your mouth where your money is.

Ransom?? Really???

Adoption involves a fairly substantial amount of money.  There are fees that are paid for the homestudy, for the placing agency, for the orphanage, for the governmental agencies- all for fees and services that are provided.   And not everyone has an extra $20-$40K just sitting around.  (And since the adoption credit comes after the adoption is completed, the family still needs to front the money, even though a significant portion will come back to the family)  So some families work very hard to raise the needed funds to pursue the adoption.  And in addition to working additional hours and cutting expenses, families who are raising funds have come up with many creative ways to exchange goods or services for the funds they need.   They hold garage sales, sell crafts on Etsy,  hold auctions, and lots of other ideas.  In short, they are working in some way to earn the funds they need.

But then there is fundraising....

I have concerns when a family is fundraising. 

These are the families who are actively using their child or their child's story to solicit donations from anyone.   The ones who, when you question them, counter with examples of how horrible their life is in their birth country, or how there are 147 million orphans in the world and now there will be "one less" (never mind that the vast majority of the 147 million orphans have living parents and are orphaned by poverty, not death)  Their rallying cry is often "do you think they would be better off in an orphanage somewhere without the love a family"

It is easy to see the pitfalls of that kind of fundraising.  The presentation of the child as a charity case, the comments to the child about how everyone helped their parents bring them home and the ever present belief that all this means the child should be grateful their parents "saved" them.   The idea that their country of birth is evil or that they are neglected, abused or starving (true in some cases, not in most cases)  And in talking to many adult adoptees these fears are not unfounded.

I can't imagine a situation that I would put a "chip in" button on the blog so that family, friends and strangers would all be asked to pay for the adoption.  But families do it all the time.  I cringe when I see it but sort of accept that it is, for some families, perfectly acceptable and that regardless of what I or other adult adoptees (or even some adoptive parents who have seen the pitfalls first hand) say they believe since they are saving an orphan we should all pay for it.  (the most outrageous example I have seen recently is a family who is $14,000 dollars short and they are within weeks of travel.  They are not only trying to raise the $14K to "help an orphan come home" but they are also trying to raise more to take the siblings, pay the new child's medical expenses and allow one parent to stay home on unpaid leave while the child undergoes medical treatment. Seriously.  or maybe Seriously?)

But then I saw this on another a blog fundraising for a fellow adoptive family. 

just NINE WEEKS to raise the $34K RANSOM to rescue these two teenage girls.

ran·som

1.the redemption of a prisoner, slave, or kidnapped person, of captured goods, etc., for a price.

2.the sum or price paid or demanded.

3.a means of deliverance or rescue from punishment for sin, especially the payment of a redemptive fine.

 

 A word that in common usage means money you pay to a kidnapper- a criminal- for the release of someone being held against their will.  I get that there is a religious connection to the word as well, I fail to see how it really applies accurately in this situation.  And truthfully, is it does apply, if we are equating this child's adoption fees with a price paid to Satan, well honestly, that's even worse.

By using that word, it is clear that the adoptive families are attempting to elicit even more donations by equating the child's living conditions with a kidnapping and the country or origin as a captor.  Which again returns around to what message are you sending the child about their origins and more importantly what message are you send the world about both your child's culture and their beginnings.  

But I guess when what you really care about is saving an orphan, and not raising a child, the means to the end doesn't really matter much.